Kuk Sark @Trang, Southern Thailand

After a rather long day we arrived at the hotel about 8pm, checked in, had a quick shower then drove around Trang town hunting for food. As we droved passed Kuk Sark ( which means Chef Sark , Sark being the name of the chef) , there seemed to be a reasonable number of diners, so, it should be pretty ok.

At Kuk Sark, you have a choice of having rice or porridge, I am not a porridge person, so I asked for rice, 1 guy asked for porridge and the other two were reducing their carbo intake. The first dish was salted fish. Lemon wedges and potent looking chili padi were served with this dish. The salted fish was salty ( I would be extremely surprised if it wasn’t), the texture was kinda like mui-heong, salted fish + lime juice = good appetizer , and went well with porridge.

When the second dish arrive, I wasn’t sure will that be an indication of what the meal would turn into ( a spare part meal) . It was –pig intestine + pig blood stew . I do not voluntarily eat pig blood and refrained from doing so, but decide to give the intestines a try. They were cooked in black soy sauce, the intestine was soft and kinda floury , not too chewy and overall rather tasty.

Sea bass with basil .- the sea vehicle ( corny joke) was deep fried and drenched in gravy and topped with fried basil. Can you make out the head or tail of the fish amidst that jungle of basil ? I find the gravy over-sweet and doesn’t seemed to jive with the fish or the basil. This was average.

Then the meal start to pick up ( slow starter huh) and the following dishes were more exciting…..

Deep fried (fatty) pork , I don’t know what to comment about this dish except that it might not be good for my cholesterol level. I thought these were lean meat and didn’t realised that it was those 3 layered pork pieces with all the obscene fat in between, you don’t feel like you are biting into fat because the texture was hard ( like those deep fried lard pieces, chu yau char) This was so so so so good. Crunchy yet tender. We loved this so much that we ordered another plate.

Seafood Tom Yam – I am not sure did the hosts ordered this because they had a Malaysian guest, I am not a big fan of tomyam, main reason being my tolerance for spiciness is rather dismal. But to my surprise, this wasn’t too spicy , so I could enjoy the soup –which had all the criteria of tomyam soup : sour, spicy and sweet. The seafood: prawns, squid, mussles were fresh and sweet.

My hosts insist that I take a pix of the Singha beer.. so here it is. We were also offered Leo beer but we stuck with Singha – the guys commented that Leo will give you more gas ( although bottled by the same company, Leo is the cheaper range)

Deep fried chicken pieces, the chicken pieces were coated in sesame and deep fried. This was crunchy and tasty too, but all agreed that the deep fried pork were tastier..and with that ….we ordered another plate of deep fried pork.

Fried century egg with basil- I went ‘huh ? fried century egg. Whaddd ? ’ when this dish arrived. Initially , the tongue sensors were overpowered by the seasoning of the dish but after that sunk in, your mind recall the familiar distinct taste of century egg. This was interesting, I like century eggs, and I enjoyed this dish. The eggs were quartered and then fried in belacan-ish , garlic and some chili padi.

Deep fried duck beak – I did a close inspection of a piece, trying to work out which part of the duck was I addressing (before putting it into my system) and my hosts told me ‘don’t waste your time and you might not eat it if you know what you are eating’ . OK, that makes lotsa sense to me. I was shown how to eat this- 1. pull apart the longish parts that can be pulled 2. chew /eat everything that can be eaten 3. leave leftovers on table. This was pretty enjoyable , although puzzling, I am still not sure which part of the duck I ate. From the pix below, maybe you can help me solve this ducky puzzle.

An enjoyable meal, the bill ( plus 4 Singha beer) came up to 1050B. which according to my host was expensive and commented that in general food is more expensive in Trang , reason unknown – but maybe because it’s the hometown of Chuan Leekpai, the former premier ? The fish was 250B- seemed a bit overpriced, which prompted the comment that- next time do not order fish but have many many plates of deep fried pork instead . Aye! Aye Aye!